The Romanian Defense Ministry said it had defused a drone wreckage found in the village of Rașelu in the southeast of the country, near the border with Ukraine, Reuters reported, quoted by News.bg.
According to Romanian authorities, the wreckage is linked to a Russian attack on Ukrainian port infrastructure in April.
Romania, a member of the European Union and NATO and with a 650-kilometer land border with Ukraine, has recorded 29 instances of Russian drones entering its airspace since Moscow began attacking Ukrainian ports on the Danube River after the start of a full-scale invasion in 2022
Fifteen of these cases have been reported this year. In late May, a Russian drone crashed into a residential building in Romania, injuring two people. It was the first incident during the war in Ukraine in which a strike on a populated area of a NATO member state caused casualties.
Last week, the Romanian Ministry of Defense reported that a local resident had discovered the explosive fragments, which required them to be destroyed on site.
Amid the increased airspace violations, Bucharest has asked its NATO allies to deploy additional anti-drone assets, including low-altitude radars and interceptor drones. Earlier this month, Romania integrated the American drone interceptor system “Merops“ into its national air defenses and plans to further strengthen its capabilities through the European initiative “SAIF“.
Bulgaria, like Romania, is among the eastern NATO countries that are strengthening their surveillance and air defense due to the war in Ukraine.